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All Rise...

He's not the Lizard King, but Judge Victor Valdivia is the Axolotl King. He can't quite do anything, but he does live in a cave and have gills, so there's that.

The Charge

"It is one of the most auspicious and interesting debut albums I have
ever heard from any band."—Henry Rollins on The Doors

Opening Statement

Classic Albums: The Doors continues the winning streak for the
Classic Albums series and will generally please music fans, no matter
what their opinions of the Doors' music may be.

Facts of the Case

The Doors' self-titled debut album caused an immediate sensation when it was
released in 1967. It spawned a Number One hit with "Light My Fire" and
sold millions of copies worldwide. It would also influence many subsequent
musicians for many years to come. Here the three surviving band
members—keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer
John Densmore—discuss how they wrote and recorded the songs on the album,
and how it was to work with their legendary singer Jim Morrison. Sound engineer
Bruce Botnick, who recorded the album, goes over the recorded tracks in detail
and talks about the recording process. Interviews, archival footage, and new
musical performances help explain why The Doors should be considered a
classic album.

The Evidence

For every person who loves the Doors, there's one who simply can't stomach
them, and it's usually for the exact same reasons. What some listeners find
hauntingly transcendent, others find insufferably pretentious, and both sides
are inextricably welded together so that it's impossible to simply edit out the
parts you don't like. Possibly more than most of the major rock acts to emerge
from the '60s, the Doors are a real love-them-or-hate-them deal.

Much of the reaction surrounding the Doors centers on the band's charismatic
and controversial frontman, Jim Morrison. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek is a skilled
accompanist. Guitarist Robby Krieger is a gifted songwriter and talented
musician (and possibly the most underrated guitarist of the era). Drummer John
Densmore kept a light, swinging beat without plodding or showing off. Still the
Doors was really Morrison's show, and he was, for better and for worse,
incapable of any self-restraint. It's hard to imagine now, because so many have
imitated and watered down his act, but, back then, rock 'n roll had never seen
the likes of Morrison before. No other singer incorporated elements of drama,
theatrics, and showmanship to the degree that he had, and, afterwards, it became
inconceivable that any singer could perform without at least a little bit of his
influence. Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten, Axl Rose, Ian Astbury, Michael
Hutchence, Henry Rollins, Perry Farrell (the last two of whom appear on this DVD
to sing Morrison's praises): generations of singers have cited him as a crucial
influence, the singer they in one form or another emulated the most.

As innovative as Morrison's style was, though, and as skillfully as the band
backed him, there was a point at which the Doors' artiness could cross the line
into mere self-indulgence. It's not an accident that the Classic Albums
series chose, as the representative Doors entry, their first album. It contains
several of their most famous songs ("Break on Through," "Light My
Fire," and, of course, "The End") and laid the groundwork for
many artists to follow. But it was also in many ways the only album that
perfected the band's style. After their debut, the Doors released many
subsequent albums, most of which merely rehashed the ideas and styles from the
first one with increasingly unlistenable and unpopular results. What had seemed
so fascinating and enthralling initially quickly soured into formula, shtick,
and even self-parody. It wasn't until 1971's L.A. Woman that the band
recovered its bearings, and then by releasing an album that was a self-conscious
180-degree turn from the mysticism and drama of its earlier work into rootsy
blues-rock. Whether that turn would have saved the Doors' career will always be
a mystery, as Morrison died suddenly in Paris only months after that album's
release. His death, ironically, would resurrect the Doors' fortunes (they were
viewed as fading stars at the time); for the rest of the decade, their music
would be granted a new respect that continues to this day.

As always, this series does a superb and comprehensive job in relating the
process of writing and recording an album. Even music fans with only a passing
familiarity with the Doors' music will find much of this enthralling. What this
DVD shows especially well is how the band members incorporated various different
styles of music into their songs. There's the flamenco licks at the heart of
Krieger's playing, the Latin and bossa nova beats that Densmore inserted into
"Break on Through" and "Soul Kitchen," the John Coltrane and
Ray Charles riffs that Manzarek played as foundations for various songs. Botnick
plays the original demos and alternate takes for various songs, and it's
fascinating to hear the process of songs evolving and changing as band members
hone in on their parts. Botnick also reveals the secret hidden lyrics to
"Break on Through" ("She gets…high!") that were
blanked out at Elektra's request, since at that time, no radio station would
have ever played a song that even hinted of drug use. There are stories about
the arrangements of songs and how the album's two covers, "Back Door
Man" (originally by blues great Willie Dixon) and "Alabama Song"
(from Bertolt Brecht's and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera), were chosen.
Rather than merely trot out more tired stories about rock 'n' roll excess, this
DVD focuses squarely on the music and is all the more enjoyable and informative
for it.

In fact, one of the most refreshing aspects of this DVD is the stubborn
refusal to indulge in yet more "Morrison as drunken sybarite" stories.
It's all about the music here. As much as Morrison was the crucial focal point
of the band's popularity and mystique, his hell-raising life and sudden death
have frequently overshadowed the other band members and their music. Nowhere is
this more evident than in the extra interviews, which, apart from a couple of
brief wild-man Morrison stories that were wisely cut out, consist of more
background about the other three band members. Densmore gives a detailed drum
lesson. Krieger relates how his style of guitar playing evolved and shows off
some licks. Manzarek explains how he played his solos on the album and what his
biggest inspirations were. This is all material that's immensely fascinating and
is usually neglected in most stories about the band. There's also an intriguing
segment where Botnick plays the demos for "Moonlight Drive," the first
song Morrison and Manzarek wrote together, and explains why it wasn't recorded
and released until 1968. Though the absence of Morrison and Paul Rothchild, the
album's producer (who died in 1994), is sometimes felt, there's no shortage of
great material here, both for Doors fans and anyone who is curious with the
recording process. This disc once again proves why the Classic Albums
series is a must for music fans of all stripes.

The technical aspects of the disc are top-notch. The 1.78:1 transfer is
clean, and while some of the older archive footage naturally looks its age, the
modern interviews and performances are flawless. The Dolby Digital Stereo mix is
first-rate.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Will The Doors convince non-fans that
this is indeed a classic album? The band's massive influence is undeniable and
even Morrison's most fervent detractors grant his enormous charisma and the
band's formidable chops. Nonetheless, this may be one of the more controversial
entries in this series. Unfortunately, Doors retrospectives sometimes take an
excessively reverent approach to Morrison and that tends to do a disservice to
the band's music. This DVD is no exception. Though it succeeds as a musical
documentary, it's at its weakest when it attempts to view Morrison's work in a
non-musical context. The segments when Beat poet Michael McClure reads
Morrison's lyrics aloud as poetry and analyzes them are the least successful.
Morrison's lyrics fit the music beautifully, and he sang them with flair and
passion. However, read aloud as poetry, they simply aren't even a fraction as
compelling. Words that sound so gripping when sung come off as pedestrian when
merely read aloud flatly. These segments, though they are brief and take up only
a small portion of the disc's running time, will unfortunately confirm the
sentiments of many non-Doors fans that the band was just too pretentious for its
own good. Ultimately, they could have been excised from the DVD to make room for
more musical discussion.

Closing Statement

Of all the DVDs the Doors have released over the years (at least six since
1999), this is the one that would be most recommended to anyone who isn't
familiar with their music. It mostly keeps the hagiography to a minimum and puts
the band's music into a larger context better than any of the others. Doors
fans, of course, will find plenty of value here.

The Verdict

The Classic Albums series has become a trademark of quality for music
fans. This disc is no exception. Not guilty.